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country or within indigenous communities, for example as related to gender and age.
The risk is that the speciic situation of indigenous peoples, as well as differences between and within
indigenous communities, is invisible in national statistics. This makes it dificult to accurately
monitor the effects of state interventions addressing indigenous peoples and leaves policy-makers
without necessary information for developing policies and programmes.
Some of the main dificulties with regards to the collection of disaggregated data on indigenous
peoples are: Controversy over deinitions or terminology
• Fluidity of ethnic identity
• Migration, conlicts and wars
• Lack of legal provisionspolitical acceptance
• Lack of understanding of the importance of
• disaggregated data
Weak national capacity for data collection, •
analysis and disaggregation Resistance from indigenous peoples if
• they are not themselves in control of data
collection Including Indigenous Peoples in Poverty Reduction
Strategies, ILO 2007 Experience, particularly from Latin America, has
shown that overcoming these dificulties is a process, based on dialogue, through which a
deeper understanding and respect for diversiied indigenous identities is developed. Recently the
focus on including indigenous peoples in national censuses has been gaining ground in Asia also,
with indigenous peoples’ organizations and experts in Nepal and the Philippines working with the
government and donors in the preparation of the upcoming national censuses.
1.3. COmmENTS By THE ILO SUPERVISORy BODIES: COVERAGE
In monitoring the application of Convention No. 169 in countries that have ratiied it, the ILO supervisory
bodies, particularly the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations
Committee of Experts see section 14 for more information have made a number of comments,
concerning the application of Article 1 regarding the scope of application of the Convention.
Paraguay: Including self-identiication as a fundamental criterion
The Committee of Experts noted that the statistical data provided by the Government from the 2002
census carried out by the Directorate of Statistics, Surveys and Census, indicates the number of
indigenous persons in the country by region and by ethnic group. It also noted, however, that the
Government had not modiied the Indigenous Communities Charter, and that self-identiication as a
criterion for deining indigenous peoples as provided for by the Convention had not been incorporated.
The Committee of Experts recalled that under Article 12 of the Convention, self-identiication
as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to
which the provisions of this Convention apply and thus requested the Government to give legislative
expression to this criterion in consultation with indigenous people.
Committee of Experts, 77
th
Session, 2006, Individual Direct Request, Paraguay, submitted 2007.
Argentina: Recognizing indigenous communities as legal entities
The Committee of Experts noted that in some provinces, indigenous communities were applying
for legal personality as civil associations. The Committee requested the Government to take steps
to ensure that the communities are recognized as indigenous communities, “since a civil association
seems to imply the formation of something new, which is not fully consistent with the Convention’s
principle of recognition of a pre-existing reality”.
The Committee also noted with interest a court decision in the Chaco Province, in which the
Convention and the Provincial Constitution were relied on “to order the Province of Chaco to set
up a register of indigenous communities and organizations with declaratory effect, and to register
the Council concerned within ive days “because the legal personality of indigenous groups is a pre-
existing fact of reality and requires unconditional and unqualiied recognition by the State; what already
exists is thus declared, namely the pre-existence
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of the personality of indigenous communities and organizations”.
Committee of Experts, 77
th
Session, 2006, Individual Direct Request, Argentina, submitted 2007.
Colombia: Applying the Convention to Afro- Colombian communities
In 2005, the Committee of Experts received information about two Colombian communities
of African extraction, which claimed that “the Curbaradó and Jiguamiandó communities fulill
the criteria for a tribal people set forth in the Convention”, and that they have “used their land
in accordance with their ancestral and traditional practices”.
The communication made reference to a national Act, which provides that “the black community
consists of the combined families of Afro-Colombian extraction who have their own culture, a common
history and their own traditions and customs in the context of the relation between occupied and rural
areas, who demonstrate and maintain awareness of identity which distinguishes them from other ethnic
groups”.
In its conclusions, the Committee of Experts considered that, in the light of the information
provided, the black communities of Curbaradó and Jiguamiandó appeared to fulill the requirements set
out in Article 1.1.a, of the Convention.
Furthermore, building on the principles of self- identiication, the Committee of Experts noted that:
“indicating that the representatives of the community councils of Curbaradó and Jiguamiandó participated
in the preparation of the communication, it would appear that, in seeking the application of the
Convention to their communities, they identify themselves as being tribal”.
Committee of Experts, 76th Session, 2005, Observation, Colombia, published 2006.
Mexico: Language as criteria for determining who are indigenous
According to the Government’s report, Mexico’s indigenous population is numerically the largest
in Latin America, estimated by the 2000 National Council of Population CONAPO Survey at 12.7
million and made up of 62 indigenous peoples. The CONAPO survey included questions about the
indigenous languages spoken and membership of indigenous groups of at least one member of the
household. The survey provided six categories in answer to the questions; the fourth of which was
”Do not speak an indigenous language and belong to an indigenous group”.
However, the Government’s report also indicated that the “de-indianization” process led many
indigenous persons to abandon their communities of origin, contributing to a signiicant loss in their
indigenous languages and their ethnic identities.
Since formal censuses were irst introduced in Mexico in 1895, language had been the main
criterion used for identifying the indigenous population. However, since many indigenous
people had lost their language, the Committee of Experts requested the Government to state whether
the persons in the category “Do not speak an indigenous language and belong to an indigenous
group” enjoyed the protection afforded by the Convention.
The Committee noted that “the application of Article 1 is not limited, as it does not include language as
a criterion for deining the peoples protected by the Convention”.
Committee of Experts, 76
th
Session, 2005, Individual Direct Request, Mexico, submitted 2006.
Greenland: recognition as a people rather than as individual communities
In 1999, a case was brought to the ILO pursuant to Article 24 of the ILO Constitution alleging that
Denmark had failed to comply with Article 142 of Convention No. 169, which stipulates that
Governments shall take steps to identify the lands that indigenous peoples traditionally
occupy, and to guarantee effective protection of their rights of ownership and possession.
The complaint arose out of the relocation in May 1953 of the population living in
the settlement of Uummannaq Thule District in northwestern Greenland, due
to the extension of the Thule Air Base. Subsequently, the Uummannaq population
claimed speciic land rights within the Greenlandic territory. In the context of this case,
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it was debated whether the Uummannaq population constituted a distinct indigenous people with distinct
land rights or whether it was part of the broader Greenlandic indigenous people Inuit.
In examining the case, the ILO tripartite committee noted that the parties to the case “do not dispute
that the Inuit residing in Uummannaq at the time of the relocation are of the same origin as the Inuit
in other areas of Greenland, that they speak the same language Greenlandic, engage in the same
traditional hunting, trapping and ishing activities as other inhabitants of Greenland and identify
themselves as Greenlanders Kalaalit”.
The Committee furthermore noted that these persons “share the same social, economic, cultural
and political conditions as the rest of the inhabitants of Greenland see Article 11 of the Convention,
conditions which do not distinguish the people of the Uummannaq community from other Greenlanders,
but which do distinguish Greenlanders as a group from the inhabitants of Denmark and the Faroe
Islands. As concerns Article 12 of the Convention, while self-identiication is a fundamental criterion for
deining the groups to which the Convention shall apply, this relates speciically to self-identiication as
indigenous or tribal, and not necessarily to a feeling that those concerned are a “people” different from
other members of the indigenous or tribal population of the country, which together may form a people.
The Committee considers there to be no basis for considering the inhabitants of the Uummannaq
community to be a “people” separate and apart from other Greenlanders”.
The Committee noted that “the land traditionally occupied by the Inuit people has been identiied
and consists of the entire territory of Greenland”. Consequently, “under the particular circumstances
of this case, the Committee considers that to call for a demarcation of lands within Greenland for the
beneit of a speciic group of Greenlanders would run counter to the well-established system of
collective land rights based on Greenlandic tradition and maintained by the Greenland Home Rule
Authorities”. Governing Body, 280
th
Session, March 2001, Representation under Article 24 of the ILO
Constitution, Denmark, GB.280185.
1.4. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: STATEmENT Of COVERAGE
